Events: Friday, January 17, 2014

Nine actors will play roles in Shakespeare’s classic tragedy completely faithfully and professionally. And the lead character, this show’s titular Drunk Macbeth, will take a wee dram before every one of his entrances. All 15 of them. Given the demands on the Scotsman (and his liver), there’s a fresh one on the second night: Geoffrey Armour plays the role (and takes the drinks) on January 17, and Peter Nicol on January 18. The audience will get to see whether the show goes off the rails or the cast is able to shepherd the increasingly intoxicated Macbeth to the play’s bloody denouement. (For a great example of a cast helping an erratic Macbeth to a triumphant finish, prep yourself with this Slings & Arrowsscene.)

The Arabesque Dance Company is one of the many groups performing at Dance Weekend 2014. Photo by Samira Hafezi, courtesy of Arabesque.

Harbourfront Centre, Fleck Dance Theatre (207 Queens Quay West)

7 p.m.

Get ready for three days of style, swagger, and grace with Dance Ontario’sDance Weekend. The Fleck Stage at Harbourfront Centre will play host to over 20 artists in the genres including flamenco, b-boy, belly dance, and ballet. The programme will wrap up on Sunday night with a special gala to celebrate the lifetime achievement of Nadia Potts.

The Canadian Alliance of Film & Television Costume Arts & Design (CAFTCAD) brings actress Susan Claassen’s one-woman show, A Conversation With Edith Head, to Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for a short weekend run. These days, Head is probably best known as the inspiration for Edna Mode in The Incredibles, but the costume designer clothed many of Hollywood’s most enduring celebrities from the ’20s to the ’80s, winning eight Oscars. Claassen tailors each show to the city she’s in, and answers audience questions in character, so film buffs might want to brush up on the films shot here in Toronto from Head’s 1,000 plus body of work.

Legendary local rock promoter Dan Burke has teamed up with several influential music collectives to present a “Class of 2014,” made up of local acts they’ve pegged for big things things in this new year. Part 1 happened on January 11; Part 2, co-produced by Silent Shout, features Jef Barbara, Lido Pimienta, Bizzarh, Nyssa, Twist.

The comic rhyming faceoff series Rapp Battlez celebrates its fourth year with a new crop of characters, including Spielberg vs. Scorsese, “Drogo” vs. “Drago,” and more. Above is a recent sample match, with “Siegfried & Roy” (Al Valulis and Thomas Rivas) facing off against two lions (Alex Tindal and Kevin Dowse). (Clip is NSFW due to language, especially Tindal’s “sexy lioness.”)

It’s not every day that a media tour opens with the injunction not to photograph “the sex blob,” but so began TIFF’s preview of “David Cronenberg: Evolution,” the organization’s first large-scale touring exhibition (for now, it’s stationed at the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s HSBC Gallery). It’s an exhaustive, stunning look at some of the wildest, most perverse creations of a pioneer of the body-horror genre—who also happens to be Canada’s most internationally renowned filmmaker.

The Next Stage Theatre Festival is back with a diverse and compelling slate of ten plays, all by artists who’ve previously contributed to the Fringe Festival. While a few of these shows have been produced at the Fringe, a number of them are brand new, and you have until January 19 to check out as many as you can.

Ali Eisner is already known for being a puppeteer, composer, and performer. Now she adds another line to her resumé with her debut photography exhibit, “Favourite Things.” As one might expect, each photo in the show depicts a cherished moment, person, or item in her life—you’ll find shots of everything from travelling and architecture, to puppets and musicians such as Kathleen Edwards, Ron Sexsmith, and Serena Ryder.

Ramin Karimloo will make you weep, or at least want to give him a hug, as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Princess of Wales Theatre (300 King Street West)

7:30 p.m.

Every revolution needs a leader. And though the movement to bring the classic 1980s musical Les Misérables back to Toronto is markedly different than the quest for political accountability and social equality, it has its hero just the same. After the official opening performance at the Princess of Wales Theatre, the audience likely would have followed London-based, Richmond Hill-raised performer Ramin Karimloo (as the story’s golden-hearted protagonist, Jean Valjean) anywhere he would lead.

Rob Kempson and Astrid Van Wieren star in The Way Back to Thursday. Photo by Michael Cooper.

Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace (16 Ryerson Avenue)

7:30 p.m.

Cameron and his grandmother share a special tradition: every Thursday night, they escape into the golden age of film together. A musical about unconditional love, The Way Back to Thursday takes us through the changes in this relationship as Cameron grows older and more distant.

You can surmise a couple of things from the title of Stewart Lemoine’s play, receiving its Toronto debut 18 years after its Edmonton premiere. Like The Exquisite Hour, which producing company the Theatre Department launched with in 2012, Pith! is not much more than a hour—brevity being the soul of wit, after all. Pithy does in part mean concise, but “pith”? Well, it can mean “the essence,” and this play is concerned with getting to the essence of play, and by extension, a play.

Jack Vail (Ron Pederson) is a sailor and adventurer who, on a whim, decides to see what sort of adventures can be had in Providence, Rhode Island, in the summer of 1931. He’s just disembarked from a long sea voyage, and craves more genteel company, which he decides he’ll find at a Sunday church service and social. His attention is quickly drawn to a woman in mourning cloth and to her slightly less subdued companion, whom he finds sobbing over a plate of pie outside after the service. She introduces herself as Ms. Nancy Kimble (Amy Matysio), and shares the sad tale of her employer Mrs. Virginia Tillford (Daniela Vlaskalic), who has held out hope for a decade that her husband will return from a trip to South America, where he vanished.

Rarely Pure Theatre brings Shakespeare’s As You Like It to the Storefront Theatre, one of the city’s new alternative presentation spaces. The company gives the story, which sees love and friendship complicated by sexual tension and gender confusion, a distinctly Canadian twist by moving the action to a wintery wonderland.

Princeton, Rod, and Lucy the Slut are some of the characters you'll meet on Avenue Q. Image courtesy of Avenue Q.

Lower Ossington Theatre (100 Ossington Avenue)

8 p.m.

Let’s face it: being a twenty-something can kinda suck. Pumped full of confidence and aspirations, we flee the family nest…and fall flat on our faces. Avenue Q uses songs (written by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx) and puppetry both to lament and poke fun at this difficult time. Much like Sesame Street, it has a cast made up of human actors who interact with a variety of furry creatures, who themselves have hands up their butts. Think that description is tasteless? This might not be the show for you—these puppets are crude and lewd, and have a taste for alcohol and porn. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

With a minimalistic set, some vintage guitars, and a rock n’ roll soundtrack, Deanna Jones takes on the persona of one of music’s most notorious figures. Humourous and introspective, The Keith Richards One Woman Show leads audiences through the highs and lows of the Rolling Stones guitarist’s often ridiculous life.

Naomi Wright and Hardee T. Lineham discuss the drastic facial reconfiguration of David Jansen's Lette in Theatre Smash's production of The Ugly One. Photo by James Heaslip.

Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue)

8 p.m.

German theatre has gone over really well in Toronto in recent years. Playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig’s contribution to Volcano Theatre’s Africa project was widely praised, and twinwerks//zwillingswerk’s production of Felicia Zeller’s Kaspar and the Sea of Houses earned the company an outstanding production award at the 2011 SummerWorks (and a trip back to 2012’s festival). Now, Theatre Smash returns with Marius von Mayenburg’s The Ugly One, a clever slice of absurdism that works well on several levels. There’s light humour when the titular character discovers that everyone finds his face repugnant, and darker tones when his new, beautiful face becomes coveted obsessively by those around him.

Isaac Bell as Robbie and Ashley Gibson as Julia. Photo by Scott Gorman.

Hart House Theatre (7 Hart House Circle)

8 p.m.

It seems like the 1980s are an odd, distant time here in the middle of the second decade of the 21st century. It also feels like it’s been almost as long since Adam Sandler was making good comedies, instead of recent dreck like the Grown-Ups films or Jack & Jill. Films like The Wedding Singer and Happy Gilmour were sweet (and only slightly profane) comedies where the screw-up always gets the girl.

Hart House Theatre’s production of The Wedding Singer is set a year shy of 30 years ago in Ridgefield, New Jersey, and trades on the nostalgia for a film that was already trading on nostalgia with neon lighting (plenty of purple wash), retro fashion, and familiar songs—the ones created for the film, anyway. (Classics like “You Spin Me Right Round” and “Love Stinks” would have made the licensing astronomical.) The 2006 musical adaptation came up with some similar (and period) sounding numbers that, in some cases, actually improve on the original. It also streamlined some of the characters: for instance, the most memorable supporting characters in the film, sleazeball Sammy (Matt Pilipiak) and keyboardist George (Scott Farley), are now both Robbie’s best friends and bandmates.

The musical also does a better job of balancing out Robbie (Isaac Bell) and Julia’s (Ashley Gibson) scenes, as she gets some songs to sing too, instead of being just a love interest. Julia’s scenes with her cousin Holly (Romina Cortina) and her mother won’t pass film’s Bechdel test, but then the boys only talk about women as well—save for a few throwaway lines about their band and an act-two number where Julia’s jerk fiancé Glen (Howard Davis) tries to sell Robbie on the world of finance.

The ensemble is spirited and, despite some persistent sound tech issues relating to the body mics, the show sounds all right too. Of course, a show likes this succeeds on the charisma of its leads and character roles: Bell, Gibson, and especially Farley are all likeable and on-point with their comedic timing. The book dutifully checks off all the memorable moments (and lines) that people are likely to recall from the film, which is, we suppose, sort of the point. You’re more likely to leave the theatre humming one of the songs from the pre-show or intermission music than from the score, but you probably will leave humming rather than grumbling.